CRIMEFEST - October 18, 2014
Joining the Payday 2 Official Group unlocks four weapons, three masks, and a bunch of weapon mods. Additionally, the more sign ups they get by October 18, the more rewards they will make available to everyone in the community. I don't think you even need the game to join. Official announcement for this event here.

My main issue with the game is, like before, they have a solo play option that is near pointless the way it's structured. It's even worse than in the first game. In fact it's worse in that way than the game that inspired it's style, L4D. They need to either 1) make your team AI more competent, 2) adjust the difficulty accordingly for solo play, or 3) stop kidding themselves with this half ass sp attempt and abandon it altogether.

And to those arguing it's designed for coop play and most don't play it solo, it proves my point. They shouldn't even have a solo option if they can't do it right.

What is pointless about it? There's a lot of heists you can solo and more you can solo with AI help (two guys). This game has virtually nothing to do with Left 4 Dead other than having four players (like most co-op games).

Yes, team AI occasionally have problems with pathing (especially true of civilian pathing too) but they make up for it in being able soak up a ton of fire and they have unlimited ammunition. If you get them in a position where they take the fire instead of you, it can make the difference between success and failure. When playing with two players, managing the two AI team members adds a second layer of decision making to the game. Either you stay together or you can separate. If you separate, who needs the most cover? Guess what happens if you were wrong.

Difficulty is determined by what heists you take (Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Overkill, Death Wish). The key is to only take jobs you know you can handle. About half of the missions (especially the transport missions) are nigh impossible without four, high level human players. The reason why the AI won't help much is because a) they don't hide and b) they can't interact with things to hasten the completion of the job because you're not going to survive the onslaught for long.

I have personally solo'd all missions on hard. I have solo'd Nightclub, Bank Heist, Shadow Raid, and Ukrainian Job on Death Wish (all stealth). Like PAYDAY: The Heist, you can play it solo with AI but you will be severely limited in how difficult of missions you can take on. This is also true of PAYDAY 2. If you want to turtle it, play by yourself. If you want to hare it, play with others. That said, I did try playing by joining other people's games and the experience is overwhelmingly bad. The PAYDAY games are best played with friends.

They've already reached 1.1 million (goal is 1.5 million) and there are still two months to go.

It's common opinion among those whom have played it solo that it is MUCH harder than coop. They didn't really scale it well for solo. For one, you can't play most of the missions in PayDay 1 or 2 on the easiest mode, but that it's even needed kinda proves my point. Yeah the squad AI do take a bit of damage but I'd rather they be more friggin competent. Them taking lots of damage makes it obvious their scripting isn't sophisticated enough, it's inadequate compensation for brain dead AI syndrome. . You have to constantly babysit them through harder sections. They have no sense of taking cover against and flanking the harder enemies, best they can do is yell out their presence and fire at them, until they go down, which leaves you or one of the others vulnerable trying to heal them.

Not like L4D coop, are you kidding? It's pretty much takes all it's basic mechanics straight from L4D. You have 4 odd boss type enemies, you have the heal them when they go down feature, you have the objectives during waves of enemies, the AI have the same inadequacies those in L4D do, and more significantly, you have semi randomized enemy spawn locations that also somewhat adapts to player progress like "The Director" AI engine Valve uses. If that's not enough for you, Overkill pretty much made it obvious themselves when they paid homage to L4D with the No Mercy Hospital DLC, which includes the Infected mask set if you have L4D installed on your PC.

At E3 2011 IGN appropriately called PayDay: The Heist "Left for Dead with banks".

"On July 25, the No Mercy Hospital DLC was released, establishing a link between Left 4 Dead and Payday(although this has been stated to be non-canon).[7][5] This DLC included the No Mercy heist as well as the Infected mask set for players with Left 4 Dead installed on their computers."

My main issue with the game is, like before, they have a solo play option that is near pointless the way it's structured. It's even worse than in the first game. In fact it's worse in that way than the game that inspired it's style, L4D. They need to either 1) make your team AI more competent, 2) adjust the difficulty accordingly for solo play, or 3) stop kidding themselves with this half ass sp attempt and abandon it altogether.

And to those arguing it's designed for coop play and most don't play it solo, it proves my point. They shouldn't even have a solo option if they can't do it right.

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I think the solo play is pretty good. I've been able to solo quite a few maps on deathwish with a bit of practice. I can solo most on overkill, and all on lower difficulties

I think the solo play is pretty good. I've been able to solo quite a few maps on deathwish with a bit of practice. I can solo most on overkill, and all on lower difficulties

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Yeah, funny how 1 out of 100 say something like that, and most don't bother even playing it solo.

This kind of thing, other than waffling with their controller design and letting decent titles like HL stagnate, is what I can't stand about Valve lately. So many people praise them, but they've done a lot of damage to PC gaming too. They talked a lot of smack about MS when they left, but in some ways they've become just like them. They're stubborn about doing things their own way, and they only seem to care about the money. In the end, Valve may become a has been PC developer that has a "PC" console that caters mostly to console players.

Valve is like the Walmart of PC gaming lately, everyone wants to follow their business model, but is it good for consumers and gaming in general?

I think I've adequately established that PayDay follows the L4D coop model, and there were many similar comments made about playing those games solo too. One that comes to mind is, "I was able to finally get my squad to the heli on the hardest mode, but I had to put them all in a small room to keep them from going outside and getting killed". Even so, such things can involve a lot of luck. IMO these are games not worth playing solo at all.

Yeah, funny how 1 out of 100 say something like that, and most don't bother even playing it solo.

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If you're looking for a team I believe there is a looking for group section in the official group on steam. If you want help on how to solo maps there are literally thousands of videos on how to solo each map

For one, you can't play most of the missions in PayDay 1 or 2 on the easiest mode, but that it's even needed kinda proves my point.

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Payday: The Heist, yes. Only the bank and Easy Street can be done on easy. I believe the rest are normal or harder. In Payday 2, almost all jobs are available on Normal. There's some (I think mostly Pro Jobs) that are exclusively Hard or harder.

Not like L4D coop, are you kidding? It's pretty much takes all it's basic mechanics straight from L4D. You have 4 odd boss type enemies, you have the heal them when they go down feature, you have the objectives during waves of enemies, the AI have the same inadequacies those in L4D do, and more significantly, you have semi randomized enemy spawn locations that also somewhat adapts to player progress like "The Director" AI engine Valve uses. If that's not enough for you, Overkill pretty much made it obvious themselves when they paid homage to L4D with the No Mercy Hospital DLC, which includes the Infected mask set if you have L4D installed on your PC.

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Except that in Payday 2, you can complete the mission without encountering any waves at all. Valve and Overkill worked on No Mercy together. No Mercy was supposed to provide the backstory for L4D. No Mercy was actually the only mission in Payday: The Heist that can be stealthed. As you quoted, it was non-cannon for the Payday crew--it was cross promotion for L4D.

I wanted to like this game, really I did, but it's just another of many made for coop games who's solo play is an exercise in futility that feels rushed and tacked on.

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I'm getting an extremely strong impression that you're hating on Payday 2 because you didn't like Payday: The Heist. They share the same engine and generally the same combat but they aren't the same games.

This kind of thing, other than waffling with their controller design and letting decent titles like HL stagnate, is what I can't stand about Valve lately. So many people praise them, but they've done a lot of damage to PC gaming too. They talked a lot of smack about MS when they left, but in some ways they've become just like them. They're stubborn about doing things their own way, and they only seem to care about the money. In the end, Valve may become a has been PC developer that has a "PC" console that caters mostly to console players.

Valve is like the Walmart of PC gaming lately, everyone wants to follow their business model, but is it good for consumers and gaming in general?

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Overkill != Valve

It uses the Diesel engine which was used for Flatout, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warriror, Bionic Commando, and Wanted: Weapons of Fate.

I think I've adequately established that PayDay follows the L4D coop model, and there were many similar comments made about playing those games solo too. One that comes to mind is, "I was able to finally get my squad to the heli on the hardest mode, but I had to put them all in a small room to keep them from going outside and getting killed". Even so, such things can involve a lot of luck. IMO these are games not worth playing solo at all.

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Sounds like a quote from Diamond Heist, a Payday: The Heist mission. Check the thread title.

If you're looking for a team I believe there is a looking for group section in the official group on steam. If you want help on how to solo maps there are literally thousands of videos on how to solo each map

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Yeah thanks, but no thanks. My schedule doesn't really work well with team play. I wouldn't be able to promise regular participation and for that and other reasons I don't play mp or coop anymore anyway.

I also know what it takes to beat games designed like this solo, and it's not to my liking. It typically involves exploits that feel repetitive and boring, like what I mentioned above with L4D. I've played PayDay 1 enough to know how to pace and progress, but that adaptive AI feature always wants to throw you a curve to punish you for doing well. I really don't have the patience for poorly made solo play where most of your practice time is spent figuring out the game's iniquities.

Valve and Overkill worked on No Mercy together. No Mercy was supposed to provide the backstory for L4D. No Mercy was actually the only mission in Payday: The Heist that can be stealthed. As you quoted, it was non-cannon for the Payday crew--it was cross promotion for L4D.

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Yet you're implying all this is coincidence? Can you not see as IGN said that PayDay from the very beginning has been like L4D with banks?

I'm getting an extremely strong impression that you're hating on Payday 2 because you didn't like Payday: The Heist. They share the same engine and generally the same combat but they aren't the same games.

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Aren't you kinda changing your defense now? First you were arguing that PayDay isn't designed just like L4D with a different premise, now you're comparing PayDay 1 & 2? For the record though, I feel PayDay 2 is even worse, just like L4D 2 was worse than 1, regarding solo play I mean.

Overkill != Valve

It uses the Diesel engine which was used for Flatout, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warriror, Bionic Commando, and Wanted: Weapons of Fate.

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No, Payday's coop style pretty much = L4D coop style, and I made that clear and backed up all my points.

At least they chose an appropriate dev name and role models to follow though. The only problem is, like pretty much ALL Valve games, including HL, the friendly AI suck at taking commands. So an "Overkill" shooter becomes drudgery when they use stupid AI. I mean just make it coop only and admit you have no AI scripting skill and call it a day people.

I keep coming back to an old game when referring to friendly AI in an sp campaign that is user friendly and effective. That game is Freedom Fighters. Funny how with all this modern tech devs can't manage to do what some have already done YEARS ago. Like I said, Overkill clearly followed Valve's coop style purely to glom off their success. It has zero to do with an QA in sp. Valve hasn't cared about sp in ANY of their coop games.

At least they chose an appropriate dev name and role models to follow though. The only problem is, like pretty much ALL Valve games, including HL, the friendly AI suck at taking commands. So an "Overkill" shooter becomes drudgery when they use stupid AI. I mean just make it coop only and admit you have no AI scripting skill and call it a day people.

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Again, I've beat all missions in Payday 2 with AI team members on at least Hard. All missions can be solo'd with AI. Some can be solo'd without AI.

Again, Valve is irrelevant here other than Payday being a Steamworks title. Different developers on a different engine.

Even though the Team AI isn't the best in Payday 2, it is decent. Case in point: when I first played Payday: The Heist, I couldn't even finish the First World Bank heist because the AI couldn't go through the hole blown in the wall. That was fixed and I've encountered no similar issues in Payday 2. No, the AI can't be commanded around other than telling them to come to you and most people that play the game are fine with that because it's better you do the interacting and let them shoot anyway (you know, unlimited ammo and a ton of health). As I said before, they do have some issues with pathing but other than that, it's fine.

2) Again, I've beat all missions in Payday 2 with AI team members on at least Hard. All missions can be solo'd with AI. Some can be solo'd without AI.

3) Again, Valve is irrelevant here other than Payday being a Steamworks title. Different developers on a different engine.

Even though the Team AI isn't the best in Payday 2, it is decent. Case in point: when I first played Payday: The Heist, I couldn't even finish the First World Bank heist because the AI couldn't go through the hole blown in the wall. That was fixed and I've encountered no similar issues in Payday 2. No, the AI can't be commanded around other than telling them to come to you and most people that play the game are fine with that because it's better you do the interacting and let them shoot anyway (you know, unlimited ammo and a ton of health). As I said before, they do have some issues with pathing but other than that, it's fine.

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1) But it looked a lot like you were dropping the L4D vs PayDay discussion in favor of PayDay 1 vs 2, and I never even brought up PD 1 vs 2 in a way that relates to the other comparison at all.

2) Again, I only hear such things from a couple people here and there. The mainstream players know of and echo my point. Some of us just don't have time to labor over a game's iniquities, like I said. That a few people do is irrelevant.

3) Seriously, still in denial of the similarities in coop style? Valve debuted this style via Turtle Rock, and Overkill is obviously mimicking it with a bank heist window dressing.

4) They have far more issues than pathing. They'll often try to do too much and get themselves taken down in a spot that makes it hard to heal them, and it often comes at one of those moments where lots of enemies spawn to punish you for good progress as I said before.

1) L4D is off topic. Most of what you've been saying sounds more like Payday than Payday 2 and thus, also off topic.

2) Then you're listening to people that never played Payday 2 or those that played less than five hours biting off more than they could chew (choosing the correct difficulty is very important) and gave up.

3) Coop is coop, is coop. With the primitive comparisons you're making, we might as well call it Dungeon Defenders with heists. It doesn't belong in this thread.

4) They aren't deliberately turning Rambo on you. They're literally trying to get to you (or another team member such as another AI that was downed) and the most direct route (that you likely took) doesn't work so they go around. You're describing the symptom of the pathing problem. An example of this in Rats, Day 2, is there is no way for the AI to path across the boards from one apartment window to another. If you take that path, they'll path down to the ground floor and back up into the other apartment building.

1) IGN's a pretty popular and watched gaming site, and as I said THEY too recognized that PayDay follows L4D's coop theme. One would think with all the homage and work they've done with Valve as well it would sink in, but I guess I'm beating a dead horse here.

2) LOL, those HERE talking of playing solo even admit it takes quite a bit of practice to get through it. Come now, exaggerate much?

3) Already made these points too many times with too many legit examples and at least one reputable site backing me up to keep hashing over this. You're in denial about it.

4) LOL, direct routes, are you kidding? The bridge mission for instance in PayDay 1 was the primary mission I was referring to as far as progressing well (via steering my crew as far away from enemies as possible), then getting throttled for success because the game is scripted to make you "Pay" for it if your squad doesn't go down.

It's a game heavily rigged toward coop, and even some of it's coop, like the bonus mission in the first game, is completely ridiculous.

I have my opinions, they are sound and commonly spoken by others, and especially the L4D comparisons are not only ON topic, but again, backed up by a rather large and popular gaming site with writers that DO happen to know the industry well.

This is not only a cult game with a small, hardcore following, even the threads about it are treated as if only fanboys of the series need apply, and you are no exception there. In fact you're the primary instigator of that sentiment here, and it only serves to lend to the points I've been making. It's a game made for the few, not the many. Not many players are willing to put up with game design like this, esp on the solo end.

There's nothing special about PayDay 1 or 2. Metacritic shows a good number of players comparing the first to L4D, and though they did try to get away from the copycat syndrome in PD 2, there's actually people now commenting they'd prefer it to have more of the kind of features L4D 2 has. That's what starting off with unoriginal ideas does for you. Meta's critic and users ratings combined average only 7.5/10 on the 3 platforms PD 2 has been put on, so despite selling more copies than PD 1, it's still not what you'd call a well liked game. More like a cult series that has a few players trying desperately to make it look better than it is in an attempt to generate more coop activity.

Frag it's a Co-op game and has never been advertised as anything else. How you can complain about it is beyond me. I have both Payday's and I will admit I don't really enjoy the first one. I do really enjoy 2 but then I have a pool of friends I can play with. I also have both LFD and would never compare them to Payday either and frankly I really didn't get much enjoyment out of either LFD where I as I enjoy PD2 alot.

2) LOL, those HERE talking of playing solo even admit it takes quite a bit of practice to get through it. Come now, exaggerate much?

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If it didn't, I'd call it an easy game and easy is boring, is it not? They start you off with a CAR-4 that, well, sucks, so you really need to fight your way for enough cash for a better gun before you can take on the harder heists.

4) LOL, direct routes, are you kidding? The bridge mission for instance in PayDay 1 was the primary mission I was referring to as far as progressing well (via steering my crew as far away from enemies as possible), then getting throttled for success because the game is scripted to make you "Pay" for it if your squad doesn't go down.

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The Green Bridge is probably the hardest mission in Payday. There are too many places for cops to hide and I'm pretty sure they can shoot at you through car windows but you can't shoot back. That's Payday though and we're talking about Payday 2.

All I gotta say is trying to stealth a mission and someone has frags on them sure is a good way to have people angry.

It was me and two friends trying to do one of the bank missions (forgot which) and we had EVERYTHING PERFECT. READY TO GO. And then my friend's finger slipped.

We then heard a "OH SH*T" over the call and a *boom* with a thousand alerted people in the bank.

The rest was hell.

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Yeah, mistakes happen a lot. The more players there are, the more likely a mistake is to be made. On missions that can be solo'd stealth, I tend not liking to take others along just because they're a liability. The Big Bank changes that because you really need a second player to find the terminal to hack.

50% I don't think is the best price they've done. Pretty sure that it will go on sale again in October during "Crimefest" (in the original post). It might beat this sale. This is mostly speculation though. I do know they'll be giving away the original Payday for free during Crimefest though.

50% I don't think is the best price they've done. Pretty sure that it will go on sale again in October during "Crimefest" (in the original post). It might beat this sale. This is mostly speculation though. I do know they'll be giving away the original Payday for free during Crimefest though.

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This is deff not the best price its been. I got most of the addon packs for $1 during the summer sale, and the Armored transport for like $2, but its the cheapest its been recently and I don't want to wait anymore